Gitea vs Octobox
| Tagline | Painless self-hosted Git service with code review, CI/CD, and package registry | Take back control of your GitHub notifications with a self-hosted inbox |
| Category | Project Management & Kanban | Project Management & Kanban |
| Replaces | Jira, Linear, Trello | Jira, Linear, Asana |
| GitHub stars | 56k | 4.5k |
| Language | Go | Ruby |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | today | 2 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Gitea
- Advanced Jira-style sprint planning, roadmaps, and velocity charts are absent
- No native real-time pair-programming or live collaboration tools
- Gitea Actions ecosystem is smaller than GitHub Actions; fewer third-party action integrations
- Enterprise SSO (SAML, advanced LDAP group sync) requires extra configuration effort
Octobox
- Scoped exclusively to GitHub notifications; no GitLab or Bitbucket support
- Not a full project management tool — no task creation, boards, or planning views
- Requires a GitHub OAuth app setup; adding team members requires individual GitHub auth
- Development activity has slowed; some GitHub API changes may not be promptly reflected
Bottom line
Choose Gitea if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Gitea for the larger community and ecosystem. Gitea has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Gitea
Painless self-hosted Git service with code review, CI/CD, and package registry